Fire Fighters, Neighbourhoods and Social Identity: the relationship between the fire service and residents in Bristol
Community fire safety interventions
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Community fire safety interventionsIn this section, I will summarise some of the contacts with the public that AFRS have, information gathered during research for the previous studies. A full list of these is at Appendix 6. Although these are broadly motivated by community fire safety concerns, some other more general activities are also covered as these still present an opportunity for generic brand advancement and for community safety messages to be reinforced, as well as perhaps having a public reassurance function. These interventions are unique to Avon, although most fire services will conduct similar interventions, such as HFSVs and schools work. However, most fire services tend to develop local messages, sometimes even at a station level. Further, whilst there is some strategic direction in terms of flagship interventions, a number of fire fighters also pursue local or personal interests in the development of interventions. As such, there is no comprehensive ‘catalogue’ of local interventions, and delivery changes as personnel move around, needs change or resources are withdrawn. The following descriptions aim to give a general feel for the type of interventions performed in Avon (but particularly urban Bristol) during the period in which I undertook the fieldwork, but are unlikely to capture community fire safety work in its entirety, and are possibly somewhat outdated by the time of writing – especially owing to the change of government and associated public sector cuts. There are a number of ways of categorising fire service community fire safety interventions. As with generic community safety work, these could be categorised as targeted or universal (Crawford 2007). Universal work applies to every one, and includes, for example information about fire safety included in council newsletters which are sent to every house within the local authority area. Targeted work is applied to certain groups who are deemed to be at higher risk (for example children, the elderly and smokers) than the general population. In these instances, messages are tailored to be appropriate to that risk community and directly address the identified risk. Materials are also provided in a number of community languages, and a wide range of universal materials are also provided at fire stations and community fire safety centres for the public to select from. Targeted work further divides into two categories, covering behavioural or demographic factors. The former would include smokers, people who use candles or incense and heavy drinkers/drug users, whilst the latter would include the elderly, single people/parents, families with young children and people with disabilities. There is every possibility that an individual or household could fall into any number of these categories, and some interventions, including the HFSV, are designed so that they can be tailored to the household’s requirements. However, it is perhaps easier to change an individual’s behaviour than their demographic status, and so messages targeted at this latter group are more about risk awareness and mitigation than overall societal change. Interventions can be framed in terms of an escalation process, starting from work which does not have an explicit engagement focus, ranging through different levels of intervention to some quite intensive work with challenging young people, and often relating to specific social policy initiatives: brand advancement; pre-engagement; cleaner, safer, greener (CSG); community fire safety; and, ASB prevention. Again, a specific intervention may fall into a number of categories, or a fire crew might take advantage of a situation to engage in a number of activities at once. In the following section, I will elaborate on these five categories, explaining the category heading and giving a generic example. Further, a number of these activities are controversial in their own right, and for a number of reasons – for example AFRS’s branded hot air balloon (Bristol Evening Post 2009). The full list is contained in Appendix 6. Brand advancement work covers work which AFRS undertake to promote their brand and corporate image. Whilst this work might not have an overtly engagement focus, it ensures that their brand is seen frequently and is associated with positive messages. This ensures positive associations and recognition for people when they meet the service in other contexts. Charity car washes held at stations are an example of brand advancement work. Pre-engagement work actively raises awareness of AFRS work and fire safety messages, but in a very arms length way. It aims to get fire safety messages into the public domain, but without being too strident about it. People can take or leave these types of messages, but, as with brand advancement work, they are intended to contribute to the overall good standing of the service. This type of work might include the fire service’s hot air balloon or attending regional events. Cleaner safer greener work emerged under the ‘liveability’ agenda in local government, following the granting of local authorities’ duty to ensure well being (Downe, Martin 2006). It is premised on the idea of linking local environmental issues (for instance waste disposal and street cleansing), low level community safety and wider environmental work such as parks and green spaces to improve neighbourhoods for residents. Fire service work fits in with a number of these issues. For example, fly tipped waste is a frequent target for fire setters and unsecured cars that are taken for joy riding are often then set alight – a powerful symbol of urban degradation. AFRS have been involved in CSG work through, for example, their vehicle arson campaigns. Community fire safety is the largest of these categories, and incorporates a range of service wide activities with a significant resource attachment. These interventions still cover different groups and different degrees of engagement, but are single-mindedly community fire safety focussed and explicit in their aims. This work includes home fire safety visits (HFSVs) which are discussed in more detail at the end of this section. Anti social behaviour (ASB) interventions are motivated by the increasing awareness in the fire service that the young people who are problematic to other agencies are likely to be problematic to them too, and, inevitably, the fire servcie are particularly interested in fire related ASBs, including hoax calls, fire setting, vehicle arson and firework misuse. Further, fire fighters can also be the victims of ASB, with verbal abuse and assaults on appliances and personnel common occurrences. Engaging with young people thus serves a number of purposes. Early interventions with younger children may help prevent later involvement in fire related ASB. Engagement work with older children might limit their involvement in fire setting, thus reducing the number of call outs fire fighters attend. Relationship building, such as through schools visits, aims to reduce attacks on staff, as well as promoting good fire safety behaviour. At the ‘harder’ end, interventions are also made with young people already engaged in fire setting behaviour at a range of levels including through the Youth Development Centre.
Funding was provided for HFSVs from central government until 2008, but has since been mainstreamed into FRS core spending. Despite this, the vast majority of FRS will continue to provide them as they are seen as being an effective community intervention and are credited with the reductions in fire deaths over recent years. As with much in the fire service, there is no standard way of delivering HFSVs, with different services taking different approaches. Some services take a non-intervention approach, with applicants filling in a form online or over the telephone and then receiving a smoke alarm through the post. Other fire services work in partnership with other local providers to perform a complete ‘safety check’ encompassing slips, trips and falls and other home hazards tailored accordingly to young families, older people or other at risk groups. The approach taken by AFRS falls somewhere between these two extremes. Applicants can fill in a form online or over the phone, or with personnel at events. These are collated centrally and then handed back to the applicant’s local station. A crew is then allocated the applicant and will arrange with them when to visit. Different stations take different approaches to this. Some stations bring an off duty crew in for overtime one Saturday a month, and get them to do as many as possible in one day. Other crews try to incorporate them into regular work time, although this means that they have to come as an entire crew (four or five people) in operational uniform, and in a fire appliance, and if an emergency comes in, they have to leave the scene swiftly to respond, an issue which is discussed in more detail in the Chapter Six. In completing the initial questions on application, a risk rating is generated, determining the risk status of the applicant. This should suggest that higher priority is given to higher risk households, but in reality, this is unlikely to be the case except in very specific circumstances (such as with disability), and although Avon have conducted many thousands of HFSVs to date, there is a considerable backlog of applications with some people waiting a number of months between requesting and receiving a HFSV. In 2008/9, the target for HFSVs was 16,666, with over 18,000 eventually completed (AFRS 2010). The format of the HFSV is broadly the same despite station differences as there is a standard check list. This contains a range of fire safety information at the start and a check list at the end which the crew complete whilst undertaking the visit. This highlights various risk areas and includes sections for specific advice to be given. Applicants are left with this after the visit. HFSVs are ‘advertised’ to an extent as being ‘something for nothing’ with many applicants just expecting a crew to turn up , fit a smoke alarm and leave again. However, the pro forma asks a number of quite personal questions, and does require a degree of commitment from the applicant, which, as demonstrated in the preface, is not always forthcoming. The HFSV covers the following areas:
Smoke alarms are then checked where they exist or fitted where they do not, fire plans discussed and the applicant informed about what to do if trapped by fire. HFSVs are of particular importance to this research project as they are one of the primary mechanisms through which AFRS engage with the public. Further, and as discussed in the Methodology and Study 2, the HFSV process allowed me to recruit participants who had had guaranteed contact with the fire service. Download 0.87 Mb. Share with your friends:
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